Akita Neru

Akita Neru is an officially recognized derivative. Her name is a play on words, Akita (亞北) is taken from "飽きた" or "get bored" while Neru (ネル) from "寝る" or "go to bed".

Design
Neru's design is similar to that of Hatsune Miku, a Vocaloid 2 developed and distributed by Crypton Future Media. She has yellow hair consisting of an odd length of short and long, the long hair is styled into a left side-ponytail held by a blue futuristic ribbon. She has a stray hair at the top of her head and nose length bangs, her eyebrows are thick and her eyes are tsurime (upward-pointing) eyelids/eyelashes. On her left upper arm is the red mark "DEN2", its significance is currently unexplained, however there is a controversial theory.

Her top is grey in color and sleeveless with a yellow hem, below her yellow necktie is a triangular cut that shows her navel, and the back has two circular holes. The rest of her attire is black with yellow trim. She wears detached sleeves, a pleated skirt with bike shorts and thigh boots. On her left thigh is a garter purse that holds a cellphone.

Personality
Neru came to represent the tsundere culture of Vocaloid. The fandom displays her personality mainly as hostile, but she is also known to be displayed in a more friendlier manner, such as having a crush on Kagamine Len, who is another Vocaloid 2 by Crypton. Other aspects of Neru is being a representation of a forum/bbs troll, a Miku wannabe, and a anti-hero of the Vocaloid personage.

A popular portrayal of her actions is that she's always seen texting on her cellphone or slacking about. According to the creator, she has a dislike for Otaku.

Biography
The exact origins of Neru vary and within the fandom this has caused some confusion. However, there has been a consistency with names and phrases despite different retellings. This section will list three of the most notable sources.

Source: Vocaloid Wiki
In October of 2007, soon after Hatsune Miku was released, a TV program in Japan degraded the users of Miku, Miku's pictures became unavailable to search in main search engines, and Miku's article was deleted in Japanese Wikipedia at the same time.

These news became widespread or "flamed up" in 2ch, then many writings to lay the news to rest or "to put off the fire" followed. The postings were with the phrases "飽きた、寝る. (Got bored. Going to bed.)" or "寝る、お前らも寝ろよ.  (Gonna go to bed. Follow me, y'all!). Soon other users made a personification character for these postings as "Akita Neru", which Smith Hioka, the designer, later finalized. Neru came to represent the tsundere culture of Vocaloid.

Source: Vocaloid Otaku
11. Neru's cell phone

On October 18, 2007, an Internet BBS website reported Hatsune Miku was suspected to be victim of censorship by Google and Yahoo!, since images of Miku did not show up on the image searches. Google and Yahoo denied any censorship on their part, blaming the missing images on a bug that does not only affect "Hatsune Miku" but other search keywords as well. Both companies expressed a willingness to fix the problem as soon as possible. Images of Miku were relisted on Yahoo on October 19. (from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocaloid#Hatsune_Miku )

In addition, some scandals that insulted Vocaloid occurred in October, 2007.

At this time, 2ch BBS was thrown into a great uproar. A rumor that it was string-pulling by the advertising agency (Dentsu Co.) which failed in the promotion of the virtual idol in the past spread. The comments which tried to quiet this uproar were posted many to 2ch by certain persons in this time. They posted many comments which insulted Vocaloid and Vocaloid fans.

When an angry fan chased the sending origin of these persons, it was recognized that their comments were made by cell phones. In addition, from another follow-up survey, it was recognized that it was an act by a famous string-pulling company.

It is Akita Neru that the person of this problem was made to be a Moe character. She works as a part timer performing string-pulling with a cell phone.

(The first picture of Akita Neru by Smith Hioka) http://neru.cdx.jp/neru.jpg

Source: Danbooru Wiki
 Notice: Danbooru is an image gallery known to host explicit imagery, the following link should lead to safe content, the text here is copied verbatim and the ref links are merely for crediting the source.

Akita Neru (亞北ネル) in phonetic reading it sounds like "I Quit. Going to sleep." (Aa, kita. Neru) She started out as a meme on 2channel, where a troll user started thread crapping all Vocaloid related threads. Some user commented that he wouldn't get angry only if the troll was a cute girl.

Thus Akita Neru, a tsundere non-Vocaloid net-chara was born. Her image color is orange-ish yellow and her character item is a cell phone. Her design was created by Smith Hioka (スミス･ヒオカ).

Neru is sometimes written as a Miku wannabe, others as the anti-hero of the Vocaloid personage. She mainly represents forum/bbs trolls, those who don't have enough patience to use the Vocaloid software, or those who gave up using Vocaloid.

Acceptance into Vocaloid
Neru is one of the Vocaloid derivatives that became officially recognized by Crypton Future Media, the publisher of the Character Vocal Series for Vocaloid 2, for commercial use. The other derivatives bearing this distinction is Hachune Miku, Yowane Haku, Sakine Meiko, and Tako Luka.

Featured appearances

 * MikuMikuDance (MMD), 3D software
 * An MMD model of Neru was created in October 2008 by modeler M2 (M2gzb) who used Animasa's Miku as the base. See the Neru Akita (M2) page for details, and also see other Neru models.


 * Maker Hikōshiki Hatsune Mix, manga
 * Neru makes a cameo appearance as a music teacher (ch6), then she later appears again as a salesperson (ch7).


 * Chibi Miku-san, 4-koma manga
 * A popular 4-koma that portrays Neru in child form, she is introduced (#54) as a smug and sometimes abrasive friend of Chibi-Miku, Chibi-Neru can sometimes be seen trying to one-up some of the characters. The fandom idea of her having a crush on Len carries over in this series.


 * Project Diva (PD), game
 * Neru is an available character in the PSP game, Hatsune Miku ~Project Diva~ and again as a playable character in its sequel. Her appearance in the first Project Diva game did not carry her "official" personality, and was as cheerful as Miku. This was corrected in Project Diva 2nd, complete with tantrum-throwing if the player has not chosen her for a long time.


 * Fanmade Promotional Videos (PV)
 * Neru, Miku, and Kasane Teto are a commonly seen in fanmade videos. Fans have dubbed them the Triple Baka, after the popular song of the same name.


 * Merchandise
 * Official licensed Neru figurines have been produced, such as Nendoroid Puchi and a 1/8 scale model.

Tsuman-ne? / ツマンネ？
She complains about the official Vocaloids(and Haku when she appears) and why she hates them, later revealing how she actually likes them, and that she wants to be loved by everyone as well. Later Haku appears and calls her tsundere.

Ok, midori ha, teki da. / おｋ、緑は、敵だ.
Rin complains about Miku being so well known and that she would like to be so well known too. When Neru offers her things she can do to bring Miku down, Rin states she is not able to do such things as she likes Miku too much. After this Neru agrees about Miku bringing joy to everyone and in the end they both say they have to try and that one day they will beat Miku.

Hatarake ! nito / はたらけ！ ニート
Haku and Neru repeatedly urge a NEET (as represented by OwataP's persona, Owatan) to get a job and stop lounging around all day. The song goes through the daily activities of Owatan the NEET, and ends with the promise that even he can work his way out of the rut he's put himself in and become a functioning member of society.

Trivia

 * Neru is regarded as a "BOUKALOID" (in Japanese, 防火ロイド or 防火LOID) - a play on words. It literally means Fireproof-loid and has the same pronunciation as Vocaloid in Japanese.


 * Neru's history, including her DEN2 arm marking, is extremely controversial due to the involvement of a supposedly-powerful entity, and this matter was asked not to be expounded for the safety of Neru's creator.


 * Despite Neru being a girl that does things her way, she is employed in a writing agency for a rate of 700 yen per hour. She sometimes she speaks in Tohoku dialect or Akita dialect. People speaking in such dialects are located in the Tohoku region. This is a reference to her family name Akita, and the prefecture's name.


 * Like Miku, Neru also has a futuristic ribbon in the shape of a blue circle holding her side tail in place. This does not need to physically touch Neru's hair to keep it in place. This is also one of the most difficult parts of Neru's outfit to recreate for cosplayers.


 * Created on the same official level (and from the same circumstances that led to her creation) is her "brother" Akita Nero. The other Akita "family member" although not created in Japan, is Akita Naru.

Gallery
Note; this is not a gallery for every fanart out there, just for reference